I believe that being a member of a guild you get out as much as you put in. You learn through active participation. Our guild has been through many changes, but it is still strong and will continue to morph through new members and new ideas always making us grow. You also gain friendship and comradery by having a ‘like’ interest plus someone to help you out when you can’t figure it out yourself.

Pacific Northwest Glass Guild – member since 2008
Positions held in guild: Past president; President; Open Studio Coordinator; Coordinator of Annual Meeting; Board member, Volunteer Coordinator for Gathering of the Guilds

My love of glass began when I was age 17 in Paris. It was a sunny day as I entered Notre-Dame cathedral. Music was reverberating off the sanctuary columns from the 8000piece pipe organ as I first gazed upon one of the Rose windows. I was in love. The play of light was mesmerizing as I stood there for several minutes in awe.
Around 1990 I took my first stained glass class at Tualatin Hills Parks and Rec in Beaverton Oregon. One of my favorite types of glass to use was made by Kokomo, the texture and patterns were interesting to create with. One of my early projects was a large framed pane of a wicker basket with flowers that I took on the train with me to Colorado to give to a friend for her new house and she ended up designing her home color scheme from the colors I used on that piece. Our 3 front windows are adorned with framed stained glass large panes of an old barn, lighthouse and a covered bridge. For my husband’s 45th birthday I made a large framed bubble juke box with 45 on it.

In 2004 I was laid off my job of over 13 years as a flexible benefits administrator for a division of Blue Cross of Oregon as they prepared to close that facility. With the severance I received, I pursued learning fused glass. Once I began fused glass, I pretty much gave up stained glass although I have used some of the patterns. I took a couple of classes on fused glass at Rose’s Glassworks and purchased a 20 inch kiln and a bead kiln at Cline Glass. Since that time I have participated in a variety of learning opportunities,including ones on torch-work and sandblasting, classes at Bullseye Glass as well as being guided by wonderful teachers such as Ann Cavanaugh, Fred Buxton and Serena Smith. At this time I don’t teach classes, but I have play dates teaching my friends and family using various techniques and inspiring them with some possibilities of glass.

I create many items that include jewelry, coasters, garden art, bowls and landscape panels. I have created a double curve from a painting my daughter did that I call NW Sky five times. Some of the reeds on Heron at Sunrise were enabled by methods I learned on a zoom PNWGG Fossil Vitria play day with Karen Seymour. I very much enjoy making vases,especially when using a large 10 inch mold, it is always a challenge to get the piece centered so it will drape well. Techniques that I have used for vases include drop dots of color,dancing flowers using different methods for the flowers, lace overlay, crackle and frit stretch. There was a segment on my vases on the television program Garden Time that aired on May 25, 2019. https://youtu.be/OLltFlQIA4Y I also enjoy making landscape skies created using my own technique, I love vibrant skies so much I named by business after them!

My most recently completed project was making two more depictions of the photo I created for the PNWGG contest in August last year. I fired 103 samples of frit blends to get the colors accurate for the photo that I was creating from. Some future projects I am working on include making flowers of various sizes and to create landscapes from photos taken by a couple of photographer friends.

Considering that I have not participated in a live show since Covid-19, I have added over 125 items to my Etsy site, www.vibrantsky.etsy.com. I do however anticipate having a booth at Gathering of the Guilds this year at the end of April. I have participated in the Gathering of the Guilds 12 times from participating in the guild group booth to a full 10’x10’booth plus I have always displayed a piece in the pavilion. I view it as a glass convention with show and tell. The first few years I think we had 60 glass participants !

A few years ago I was co-vice president of what at the time was the Oregon Glass Guild. When I first joined the guild in 2005, I was impressed by how cooperative people were about sharing and passing on the knowledge they had of glass techniques and methods. Since that time I have watched and learned from my fellow artists and I cheer on their growth and accomplishments.

My love of art was born at a young age due to necessity and boredom. I made mud pies and macaroni mosaic and potholders out of old socks. Yes, old socks. Imagine taking bread from the oven with old socks and yes, we made bread too. Before bread became artisan, it was just bread. When I was in the seventh grade an art teacher inspired me and, though I never pursued anything at the time, the seed was planted. I went through a phase in life called ‘making a living’ and then finally gave that up and just chose art. I have dabbled with flowers, fabric, beads and baking and finally settled on glass as my choice for perfection.

Basically, I am self-taught but I love to learn and continue to take classes in stained glass, mosaic and glass fusing. I have studied under international masters of contemporary mosaic such as Martin Cheek and Christine Stewart. Other classes and workshops are done locally. I, myself, am a teacher of stained glass, mosaic and fusing. Sharing the love of glass inspires me as well, making me continually reach for new ideas and techniques.

I have always loved rainbow colored and ordered glass — I am a RAINBOWAHOLIC. I also happen to be OBSESSED with dichroic glass jewelry, along with anything diamond-like and sparkly.

It really bothers me that most rainbow pieces on the market lack a good purple. After I had collected about 10 pieces from a local artisan I asked him to try to add purple to a tray of rainbow style pendants. I offered to buy the whole finished tray. He put it off for a long time because he busy making things for other clients. During that waiting time, I decided that it was unlikely that I was the only person wanting complete rainbows in my jewelry and art glass. I felt I wanted to try to fill some of that void with my design eye and art style so I started making glass pendants with all 7 rainbow colors. Dichroic glass became my go-to medium. I tend to make hidden channels in my pendants to allow a clasp to freely float all the way through. Over the last 8 years I have branched out into other things.

I really like thinking through the layers to complete a piece. Sometimes I have a solution for an addition to my project figured out in my head that makes an item more useful. I recently added battery operated light mounts and a hanging point to the back of a Barn Star mold, to make it be a lighted Christmas tree topper or a focal point in a wreath. Because of my channel work with pendants, I had good solutions for these additions already worked out.

My most ambitious project lately was 6 Fantasy Fairy Flowers in 6 weeks in 18 kiln loads. Thankfully, I had a very detailed tutorial and it all went smoothly. A true labor of love. I easily named each one of them and wasn’t sure I wanted to let them go to new homes.

Recently I’ve started making fish by building up frit in a slumping mold. From side spots, to the blush of color, to the surface spots again. It can be viewed from both sides in a display, or used as a sushi plate. They take about 3 hours and 15 layers to create and stabilize. I want to explore more of this technique.

After moving to Portland in the mid 80’s and working in the food industry until 1997, I began a second career in commission architectural glass in 2000 at the encouragement of an interior designer. I had never worked with glass, so after 3 years of classes and hundreds of samples and experiments, I began manufacturing glass tile, vessel sinks, and lighting for several designers.

https://www.icingsglass.com/

The recession of 2008-2011 and the recent pandemic were difficult times for most all of us in the arts, but we persisted. I assembled an incredible team over the 20 years, including a waterjet engineer, metal artist, lighting engineer, sand-carver and glass polisher. We are all local independent artisans, and it has been the most enjoyable part of architectural glass work. During these two decades I was also creating Navajo-style tapestry works of art. These two art forms were worlds apart from one another until recently when, for the first time, my love for glass and my passion for fiber art were intertwined.

At a Pilchuck Glass School residency, I was given permission to breath, reflect, fail, and observe. It was the greatest artistic gift even given to me, and it changed my life immeasurable. From that opportunity came clarity, and slowly I have woven a tale that encompasses my desire to speak to social justice issues through mixed media visual arts.The series ‘Universal Vessels’ materialized as I imagined merging fiber and glass to represent the bringing together of dissimilar cultures. The baskets and vessels of the series are created with kilnformed glass for the structures’ bases and spokes, while the weft binds the glass spokes with fiber including reed, yarn, beads, and wire.

https://candaceprattfineart.com/

I have developed three basketry techniques over the past 2 years – each more technical, yet more representative of indigenous works. Initially, the baskets and vessels created in 2020 examined the technology and materials needed to combine the two media. In a multi-step process, a flat glass disk is fused into a round or oval shape. Waterjet-cutting creates the vessel spokes; the number, diameter and length of each spoke is determined by the weaving pattern chosen for the weft. A final firing follows allowing the disk to slump into the shape of the ceramic or stainless-steel mold. Ex. Oregon Bounty. Having made only a few baskets prior to this new body of work, learning traditional basket weaving techniques has been an exhilarating undertaking. Adapting these materials and processes to bring out my contemporary style was freeing and invigorating.

In the next generation of vessels, I focused on achieving a more traditional basket shape – one with a smaller rim diameter than vessel body. New molds and cutting techniques were developed for the glass, while utilizing traditional basketry weft. An example of this technique is from 2021 All are Welcome.

My 2022 series titled Native Grasses is an adaptation of the traditional coiled grass baskets. To represent the grass, I have chosen stringer, which are bundled and shaped in a kiln-forming technique. Waxed linen is used to twine the grass-like bundles of glass together. I very much enjoy the comradery, inspiration, and energy of our PNWGG and hope our guild remains an ever-strong group of visual artists.

See more of Candace’s work at her Members’ Gallery page.

As a native Northwesterner I’ve been exposed to all manner of sea life. This influenced my signature series of “Shilshole Seashells from the Salish Sea” – fanciful marine shapes of both bright and subtle colors. No two are exactly alike. These shells are time-consuming and difficult to make, requiring a team of two or five highly trained people. The body part of the shell is blown first, in the off-hand style, with five or more layers of colored and clear glass added, then cut open while hot, and sculpted into shape. It is then embellished with additional bits of hot, worked glass.

All my life I have been into “Show and Tell” and being a thing-maker. I invented a widely used deadman switch to control the torches used by blowers and lampworkers and sell them on my website. I will have them at my studio on the Glass And Decor studio tour in Seattle October 15-16 if you do torchwork and want to try one
http://www.friedmanglassworks.com/homepage/tools

I have done lots of Street Fairs, Art Galleries, Museums, Public Exhibitions – State and International Festivals, showing and telling visitors about glass. In 2009 the “Shilshole Seashell Museum” (An Ersatz Art Installation for the truly curious and the magpie in all of us) was opened to the public and a Museum Catalog was printed. It has been updated with additional items and continuing stories of the seashells and their travels. If you buy one of the “exhibit cases” you get a free copy. This new version of the Seashell museum will be at the Blowing Sands studio and gallery in Seattle throughout October and November.

Hello and happy summer to everyone in the Guild from us in our little piece of heaven, our property neighboring the Willamette Valley Vineyards winery in Turner, Oregon. Here we have our two studios, our home and a small Christmas tree farm that keep us busy.

When we retired, Gerald in late 2016 and Rose in spring of 2017, we made plans to just travel abroad and see as much of the world and as many cultures as possible and for two years we did just that! As we both love history and art, we toured dozens and dozens of museums and churches marveling at beautiful paintings and amazing glass artistry. It was later that set our imaginations ablaze with ideas we wanted to capture and create in glass. One small issue, we hadn’t a clue where to start.

In 2018, in between trips, I looked up a stained glass artist friend whom I had not seen for 20 years, asking her if she would teach me the basics of stained glass and mentor me in my efforts. Gerald purpose built me a great little studio for creating stained glass, painting and sculpting. My friend, Claudette, did teach me the basics and continues to mentor me on my glass journey.

Once I was up and running, Gerald was hot to pursue his own passion to work with fusing and slumping glass. To begin that journey we both signed up to make our own sheets of glass at Bullseue and while there we signed ourselves up for a 3-day Tim Carey workshop Bullseye was offering in late Spring of 2019. We were, quite frankly, in way over our heads during that advanced glass workshop, but we loved everything we were being shown and found we were actually creating what we set out to make. The workshop cemented our mutual desires to create glass art in earnest.

An amazing part of the workshop experience is meeting other artists. It was our lucky day to meet and get to know Charlene Fort. She immediately recognized two things about us…..our desire to make glass art and our true need to educate ourselves further to be successful at it. She encouraged us to join the Oregon Glass Guild to get to know other glass artists who, she assured us, freely shared ideas and techniques and could point us to other learning avenues.

Gerald left the Bullseye workshop and immediately began building his warm glass studio, completing it in late 2019.

If there is a silver lining to COVID-19, it is that for two years, along with everyone else, we traveled nowhere. Instead, we enjoyed the gift of lots of time to experiment, design and bring to life glass art creations in two mediums – stained glass and fused glass. Our artworks are sold by Gallery at Ten Oaks in McMinnville, River Gallery in Independence and by the Halicuna Bay Mall in Salem. This year we also enjoyed participating in the Gathering of the Guilds in Portland.
We have learned so much from guild members, this past year especially, and we both thank each person who has helped us to improve our art by teaching us new ways to play with glass.

Hello glass friends! I’m Pam Archuleta, and my husband, Sky, and I are Sua Lana Glass Art in Scappoose, Oregon. Sua Lana (pronounced ‘Shwa Lana’) is a Basque term that means ‘created by hand with fire.’

Our business was borne from our love of art and a fascination with glass. I began my journey in glass some 15+ years ago when I was inspired to take classes in glassblowing. At the time, I truly didn’t realize there were so many ways of working with glass, and my experience with glassblowing quickly blossomed to include torch work and fusing in various ways. The process that has proven most interesting in my exploration so far is pate de verre because it’s a complex process that taught me many things about glass and its properties, and gave me an opportunity to learn how to make many different types of molds.

I grew up in the Industrial Ceramic Industry in California. My father developed clay slip and porcelain formulas for industrial use. Corning fell in love with his formula as did doll-makers. I learned to make glazes from glass and various mediums and took classes at Corning where I was not only the only kid, but I was also the only women. I am back to my original roots and opening a kiln again and seeing what comes out is like Christmas on a weekly basis. My only regret is that my father could see me now, he would be so proud!

I combine torch work, vitrigraph, glass powder, glass pieces, and glass paint to create 5-9 layer pieces. I still do some bead work but lately I have been making more elements to embed in glass. I have a vitrigraph kiln and create much of my own cane. A vitrigraph kiln is used for the process of heating glass in a small receptacle and allowing the glass to flow out of the bottom of a pot through the bottom of the kiln. Once the glass heats to molten, it can be pulled and manipulated or twisted into unique patterns. It is a great way to create interesting embellishments to incorporate into traditional glass fusing techniques. I am also one of the region’s few torch workers active in the Portland area.

For my fused work, I use several layered techniques and I am always surprised when the kill opens. Working with glass is fun and challenging and also allows me to harness my abundance of energy in a creative way. I do much custom work and if interested in classes or custom projects please contact me.

See more of Carlyne’s work in the Member’s Gallery

I did glass blowing and fusing during a vacation in Lincoln City, OR in 2016 (lived in Michigan at that time) and was hooked after that. After moving back “home” to Washington in 2018 I took more glass fusing classes through Bullseye Glass and Melt Glass Art Supply (Vancouver, WA). I started out with glass fusing but got “bit” by the glass on glass (GOG) mosaic technique after taking a class through Melt that Kory Dollar (Marvelous Mosaic Fine Art) taught.

I spent much of 2020 and 2021 doing GOG mosaics as it was perfect COVID-19 lock down activity that I could do from the comfort of home. In fall 2021 I took a leap to purchase a small kiln for my home studio and have concentrated on glass fusing since then. Shortly after that my wife and I decided to start a new business venture and created TLT Art LLC. We are still working out a business plan and how we plan to market our art creations. As a Native American with the Grand Ronde Confederated Tribe, I was able to get certified to sell at the Spirit Mountain Casino gift shop so that is officially my first selling venue.

Glass is my art medium of choice because there are so many different forms and techniques that can be used to create art. The biggest challenge is understanding the science behind how glass changes in the firing process and how best to process within a kiln to get good results. I am always looking to learn from other artists to see how I can interpret and incorporate new techniques in my finished pieces.

New techniques that I have been exploring recently are vitrigraph and landscapes with depth. I joined the glass guild as an opportunity to get access to a larger community of glass artists and opportunities to learn from others. Shortly after joining the guild I was approached to volunteer to be on the board. I have served on other non-profit organizations’ boards and held other volunteer positions in the past. I always enjoyed sharing my time with other dedicated people in furthering a good cause. You can read my message in the January newsletter to better understand the goals that I have set for 2022.

Hi, I’m Cheryl Chapman and my business is Silly Dog Art Glass. I have been working with glass since 1990 when I took a stained glass class at the local junior college. I have been making a living with glass pretty much the whole time, first working at a small studio designing and building windows, then building and installing windows for private clients and even working as an office manager of a glass supplier and glass beveler for many years.

I’ve been fusing for about 20 years and when I began enameling on glass about 15 years ago, I never looked back. I fell in love with the process of painting on glass to present my drawings in a way that is unique to me. I am mostly self-taught. I don’t have any art schooling and have taken only a few glass classes – two semesters for stained glass at the junior college, one weekend of glass fusing with Gil Reynolds, and one several day workshop on glass enameling with Cappy Thompson. The rest I have figured out on my own with trial and error and research. When I began painting, I simply knew what I wanted the results to look like and then figured out how to get that look. I tried all kinds of shortcuts, but finally settled on methods that may take longer, but satisfy my aesthetic.

I do teach my reverse enameling techniques at workshops here and there as well as occasionally at my home studio in La Pine, OR. I like teaching the in-person workshops, but I also sell a video tutorial that gives you the basics of my process as well. Many people find that taking the workshop and having the video as a back up after the class works well for them to help remember all the steps and stages. I’m also always available to answer questions long after the class is done.

I’m always looking at new ideas for “products” to make and sell. I currently have my work in four different galleries/shops and find that in order to make money selling glass work I must have a good combination of accessibility (pricewise) and unique designs. So, I make several different types of items at different price points ranging from $15 to $500. And I frequently get bored making similar items over and over, so they tend to change and adapt over time. I have a few new ideas to work on this spring and am looking forward to getting to work on them.

Before I moved to Oregon, I lived in a small mountain community in southern California. That is where I joined an artists’ network that got me excited about being an actual artist and I forged friendships that will last a lifetime. I’m glad I’ve finally joined this glass guild and I hope I can meet many of you in person or virtually. I love seeing what other people are creating and hearing about how they got where they are today and what they are excited about doing in the future.

I came to the world of fused glass in the way that I suppose most of us did; I had been working with stained glass since the early 1990’s when I “discovered” glass that had been manipulated in a kiln. Until then, I hadn’t realized that was an option! I was living in rural British Columbia (I still am) and the internet was relatively new, but my fortuitous visit to a glass retailer in Idaho awakened me to an art form that has been my passion for over 10 years now.

Shortly after buying my first kiln (encouraged by my husband) I attended the Glass Expo in Las Vegas, where I took some introductory courses in order to learn the basics. From there, I did a lot of experimenting. There are no fusing shops near me, so I had to improvise with what I had on hand to try to bring forth the ideas bubbling in my brain. I’m grateful for that. I think if I could run to a glass shop every time I thought I needed a particular tool or supply, I wouldn’t have had to become creative/innovative with what was in my studio. Within all of that experimenting, I came up with some techniques that I put into the tutorials that I sell in my shop on Etsy https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/SarahMillerGlass I have a Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/SarahMillerGlassTutorials related to the tutorials, which is full of tips and mini-tutorials. It has been very gratifying to be able to share in this way.

During this quiet time of Covid, I often find that I’m not drawn to working with glass. I’ve started working with textiles, making small art quilts using some of the same methods I use with glass. It’s quite amazing how similar quilting is to fusing, actually. That’s not to say that I haven’t been producing glass pieces.

I did quite a few pet portraits last year, just before Christmas. All of them were based on photos that were emailed to me by the person requesting the portrait. After working with the photos so intensely, I often felt like I knew the animal, which was really nice. I tried to capture the essence of the animal without just copying the photo. I mostly used just black powder, but every once in a while I added some color, as you see in this little one’s ears.

I so enjoyed creating the animal portraits that I decided to challenge myself by doing a person. My niece and her husband were separated by Covid, so I decided to do a portrait for her. I had intended to use only powder, as I did with the animals, but as I started on this I realized that dichro glass would be fabulous for the sunglasses, so I ran with that.

Of all the techniques I use and enjoy, I think the powdered evergreens is the one I’ll always keep coming back to. I have no idea how many pieces I’ve done using this technique, but I just find it so relaxing and satisfying. I can just do it without having to stress about anything. (This is one of the tutorials that I sell.)

Looking at these photos, which are some of my favorite pieces, I guess I’d say that I don’t have a particular style. The common thread running through all of them is that I’ve documented the creation of each one. I’ve been doing that pretty much since I started fusing. I find it really interesting to see how a piece looks during all of the stages of creation. That’s the sort of thing I like to share in the Facebook group.

I’m looking forward to a new year of creating, and to being inspired by your creations!
-Sarah Miller
www.sarahmillerglass.com

I am a native of Washington State, living most of my life on the Kitsap Peninsula, just a ferry ride from Seattle. I was raised in a family of highly creative people and dabbled in various mediums including pottery, sketching, painting, and metal work. Art has always been part of the fabric of my life, but I never really considered myself an artist (sound familiar?). When I retired in 2011, I had intentions of becoming a metal sculptor, but found it to be too much like the work I had done early in my career in the Shipyards.

I have been fascinated with fused glass since the early 1980’s when I met a couple of glass artists during a local studio tour. In 2014, I was introduced to a local glass artist who needed display stands fabricated. Being a welder, I worked out a deal to make stands in trade for lessons. I immediately fell in love with kiln formed glass and knew I had found my medium for artistic expression. After working out of a cramped corner of my garage for two years, I built a studio and began offering basic fusing classes. In 2019, I joined Loraine Wolff at Waterfront
Glass Studio where I currently create and teach.

I feeI indebted to many people in the glass community who have shared their knowledge and
experience. I have been inspired by and taken classes from some of the best artists in the field
including Michael Dupille, Ann Cavanaugh, and Donna Sarafis.

I believe as artists, we should
always be learning and growing. Next on my list to take classes from are Miriam DeFiore, Paul
Messink, and Linda Humphrey.

Although I love trying almost anything that can be done with glass in a kiln, my main focus is
Impressionistic landscapes and the human form. I work primarily with sheet glass, frit and
occasionally enamel paint to create my images. To achieve clarity and depth in my pieces, I
developed a technique I call my “flip technique” where I work on both sides of the glass and
then fuse layers together. I start each piece with a vision and a plan. But as anyone with fusing
experience will tell you, glass melting in a kiln does not always do what is expected. One of my
mentors gave me the most profound advice: “Go where the glass takes you”.

My love of sculpture and curiosity for all things done with glass in the kiln has me exploring and
experimenting with glass casting. Learning mold making, sculpting and developing firing
schedules for casting are a whole new adventure and completely different than painting
landscapes with frit.From 2016 through 2019, I taught “Painting Landscapes in Frit” classes
at my home studio and at studios around the country. I hope to begin teaching again in 2022
with a plan to do individual or small classes where I can provide more personal instruction.

This is what my world has become: I think, talk, and breath glass. I dream about it, I wonder about it, I envision things with it. OK enough. You get the picture. Some history is due here. When I was about 6 years old, my mother took me on a “special” weekend down to Colorado Springs, Colorado to visit different places. One of the places we went there was a glassblower demonstrating how to blow glass. The fascination that it held to that 6-year-old child went so deep into my psyche that when I turned 50, it emerged again into full blown passion

We had moved into Hood River, Oregon from Texas. In looking for things of interest to do, I ran across a Community Education course that Linda Steider was teaching. It was a 6-week long class on fused glass. Her description brought back images of the glassblower to my brain. Not knowing that fusing was different than blowing, I imagined being in that arena of hot glass and playing with it. After the second 6-week course with Linda, I told her that “this is interesting but so predictable. Wasn’t there something else that you played with that involved hot glass?” Needless to say, I was simply shouting out my own ignorance about the predictability of this medium. Linda graciously referred me to Andy Nichols who had just quit his job to become an artist in hot glass. I called him and immediately got into his first class.

After several 6-week sessions with Andy, he asked me if I would become his assistant. Of course, it took nearly 3 nano-seconds to reply in the positive. Nearly 20 years later we are still together. The quality of education I received from both Linda and Andy have instilled in me a desire to do things to the BEST of my ability. Even though I have a new location in Texas, my home is with Andy in the hot-shop. This is something I have had to put to rest temporarily but I’m certain I will return to play with him at the end of a hot pipe soon.

As we age, we find the body refuses to be gracious in the things we expect of it. So, the weight of the pipe and glass was beginning to strain the forearm near the thumbs. The constant turning of the pipe with the added weight extended nearly 5 feet away from the center of your body, began to take its toll. Because of that, I realized I really needed to get more into the “predictability” of the fusing process.

Every time that I open the kiln and find something didn’t quite work out the way I envisioned it, I think back to my arrogant statement to Linda. I have quietly learned that THERE IS NOTHING PREDICTABLE ABOUT GLASS. Unless you are Bullseye’s research team.

Really, there are so many considerations to be aware of with this medium and the techniques that others have developed and gladly shared make this a lifetime challenge. Currently I don’t have a studio. We have engaged a builder to build a studio, however, the time of year here in south Texas has not lent itself to much progress. The land has been excavated for the concrete guys to come pour the foundations and floor. However, between two severe rainstorms and a tornado, the rich black clay soil is still too wet to lay the foundation.

Patience is my new catch-phrase.When the studio is completed, my goal is to be able to have fellow teachers come down here and teach a class. This area is ripe for glass to be introduced. I have numerous neighbors just waiting to get into this studio. We have a guesthouse that is waiting for teacher and student bodies to occupy. Life sure is interesting. ——Charlene Fort

Born and raised in California I spent most of my vacations at the seaside.  My love of the ocean inspired my move to the beautiful Oregon coast when I retired.  I have always been involved in arts and crafts and have played with multiple mediums from oils and acrylics to polymer clay, sewing and cake decoration. I was particularly infatuated with the translucent nature of glass with it’s brilliant colors and with the sparkle of dichroic glass.

I started fusing and making my own jewelry after taking a class at the local community center.  That 1st class was more than 25 years ago.  What  started as a hobby has progressed to a passion for glass and a creative outlet that provides art therapy and intriguing challenges. I have taken classes with many talented glass artists and am looking forward to attending more when the pandemic subsides.  I find that I am continually learning new things and love that my fellow glass artists are so willing to share information.

I find endless inspiration in the marine environment, and by all of the colors, textures, shapes, & designs found in nature. I use primarily Bullseye glass which is made locally in Portland Oregon.  This was another perk of moving up here.  I can drive to Bullseye glass factory. 

I use various techniques including hand painting enamels, copper inclusions, and multiple kiln firings at different temperatures to create my pieces. I am so fortunate to live in a beautiful area surrounded by nature and to have several glass buddies living close by.  We have lots of fun getting together, sharing information and experimenting with glass techniques. We always laugh and say “you can never have too much glass.”  We just need more time to play!

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN DOING GLASS WORK?
I started lampworking in about 2007, after having been a (part-time) potter for about 40 years. I’ve always worked in the art field, at galleries, museums, and other arts organizations. Now I am a retired graphic designer. But I still really like making things. When I started in glass, as a former potter, I assumed I would gravitate toward making functional objects. But I found that I prefer the freedom to just play with glass and bead designs and make whatever I want.

My work starts with individually made lampwork beads that I highlight in one-of-a-kind wearable art jewelry. The pieces have a recognizable style, featuring bold, distinctively graphic designs, giving each one a unique personality. I do not make the same pieces over and over, as I am always learning and practicing new techniques and color combinations. I strive for design cohesion and technical perfection in my work.

HOW DID YOU GET STARTED IN GLASS?
When I realized I wasn’t going into my clay studio very much any more I decided to try other things and I took a couple of fusing classes. I realized my existing pottery kiln would not work for melting glass. But with my first bead making class I was hooked. In fusing the magic happens when you aren’t looking. The immediacy of the process of lampworking is really appealing.

I can make sets of beads that match, or make every single bead a different size, shape or style according to my mood. While there are always surprises upon opening the kiln after annealing, it’s negligible compared to the joys and disasters experienced upon opening a ceramic kiln. I like being confident that what I put in will be what comes out.

DO YOU HAVE A PRIMARY TECHNIQUE OR LOOK THAT YOU ARE KNOWN FOR?
Not necessarily, but pattern really appeals to me. I make beads in many styles. I enjoy making sets of beads with varying
patterns in the same color range and combining them in jewelry. I add elements of silver or onyx to the pieces to further emphasize the beads and to give each piece a unique personality. It was never my aim to make jewelry, but I find that I really enjoy it. It uses a different part of the brain, and is quite satisfying. I usually make beads that I like and then decide which beads go with others, old or new, then put them together — design ideas coming as I work on the jewelry. I also make tiny glass mobiles. It’s a challenge to make them balance, and great fun. But the mobile arms are quite small, because they are made on wires that have to be thin enough for me to bend. I’m trying to figure out how to make them more visible.

WHAT DO YOU ENJOY MOST ABOUT DOING GLASS AND
WHAT HAVE YOU FOUND MOST CHALLENGING?
I enjoy the limitless possibilities in glass. There are so many colors! So many techniques!
I can keep learning and honing my skills, and never run out of ideas to try. It’s challenging to have an idea I can’t quite realize to my satisfaction, but I keep working on it, and even if I never achieve perfection, I learn something new anyway. Some colors react with others in interesting ways. Certain types of glass, mostly the “silver-reactives,” are expensive and challenging to master. But the results are worth the struggle. Silver-reactive glass can have rainbow, oil slick, iridescent or other beautiful effects and the beads have great depth.

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